Telephony fraud is unfortunately nothing new but with the opening of the new National Cyber Security Centre, ITSPA have seized the opportunity to demand that GCHQ work together with industry to combat the issue and make telecoms fraud a priority.

ITSPA argued that “Government, law enforcement and industry need to be more joined up to help combat telephony fraud, which remains a significant problem and is estimated to add 2% to the average user’s phone bill.” saidEli Katz, Chair of ITSPA.

She added “Telephony fraud is in some ways the UK’s forgotten crime. Due to the difficulties in bringing forward successful prosecutions due to the highly international element of crime, it often goes unreported by the telecommunications industry, resulting in law enforcement and Government devoting a disproportionately low level of resource to the area. ITSPA continues to work to encourage industry to report instances of telephony fraud to ensure that the crime receives the attention it deserves.”